Oppo A71 Review: Nice design, smooth performance, and well-priced

The Oppo A71 is another budget device that looks solid on paper, but can it deliver a consistent and reliable day to day performance. Currently priced around Rs. 10,000 on Indian e-commerce websites, let’s see whether the Oppo A71 is worth the money? I’ve been using the device for about a week now, and here’s my take on the device.

Box Contents

Oppo A71 Handset

USB charging cable

Wall Charger

SIM Ejector Tool

User manual and Warranty information

Look and Feel

Despite the budget price tag, I liked the handset’s build quality as well as form factor. It fits nicely in the hand thanks to its subtly curved edges and compact design. The back of the phone gets a matte finish that not only gives the phone a premium look but also makes it easy to hold. That being said, the matte back is also prone to scratches and would get smudged with prolonged usage.

Display

The OPPO A71 has a 5.2-inch HD TFT display with a pixel density of 288ppi. The screen also gets covered with a layer of scratch resistant glass for added protection. The display is nothing special, though it certainly does the job for a budget device. The screen gets bright enough and does very well in direct sunlight. Even viewing angles are great and I had faced no issues watching multimedia content on the handset.

OS and Software

The Oppo A71 runs Android 7.1.1 Nougat with the company’s proprietary Color OS 3.1. The layout of the OS is heavily inspired by iOS. The notifications panel is accessed by swiping down from the Home Screen, while ‘Settings’ are housed at the bottom of the Home Screen. Hence, it lacks the look and feels that you’d expect from an Android device. That said, navigating around the OS felt smooth and lag-free. It also comes with a slew of handy features such as an inbuilt blue light filter, three finger swipe screenshots, lock screen magazine, and more.

Performance

Powering the Oppo A71 is Qualcomm’s SDM 450 octa-core chipset bundled with 3GB of RAM. The performance is what you’d expect from a mid-range phone. Everyday tasks such as web-browsing and email are silky smooth and playing games like Fruit Ninja and Subway Surfer works well, but fire up a high-end game like Asphalt, or try to open multiple web browsers, and you notice the handset struggling to cope up.

Elsewhere, the device also comes with a face unlock feature giving users an extra layer of security. It’s easy to setup and unlocked the device in less than half a second every time I tried using it.

The overall performance is quite satisfactory for a mid-range phone. However, the device is clearly not meant to perform furious multi-tasking or run high-end games.

Camera

The Oppo A71 features a 13MP primary camera with a f/2.2 aperture with AF and LED flash. It also offers 6 beautify levels, 8 real-time filters, watermark, palm shutter, bokeh effect and 50MP Ultra HD Mode (explained later). Shots taken in daylight looked crisp and packed plenty of details. But in low-light conditions, the camera tends to struggle as images appear a tad grainy.

That said, the camera performs rather well given the phone’s budget price tag. The focus is quick, and I was rather impressed with the camera’s 50MP Ultra HD mode. The feature essentially takes up to 6 images consecutively and stitches the best parts of each image to make one Ultra HD 50MP shot, which the company claims has four times the clarity of any standard image, and the difference is clearly noticeable when you zoom in.

For selfies, the handset gets a 5MP front-facing shooter with f/2.4 aperture and screen flash. The quality of selfies is good as long as you’re in ideal lighting conditions. Though, in low light, selfies turned out rather grainy and overexposed.

Battery

The phone’s 3000-mAh battery can easily last a day of heavy usage after the full charge, retaining as much as 20% juice. For light users, the device can easily last for more than a day and a half without completely having the need to charge. However, it takes nearly three hours to fully recharge the handset once the battery completely drains out.

Pros:

Premium-looking unibody design

Speedy performance

Face Unlock works well

Captures good daylight shots

Decent battery life

Well-priced

Cons:

Matte back is prone to scratches

Only 16 GB internal storage

No fingerprint sensor

Verdict – Should you buy?

Given the phone price, the Oppo A71 is a well-rounded package that delivers a reliable day to day performance. It can be the ideal phone for budget buyers with its speedy, consistent performance across the board. The handset looks great, captures good daylight shots, the display is satisfactory, and delivers a pretty solid battery backup. If you want to spend Rs. 10,000 on a phone, the Oppo A71 is certainly worth a look. You can also consider other options such as Centric L3 and Centric A1 if you’re looking for a good budget device.

REVIEW OVERVIEW

Build & Design

Display

Performance

Camera

Software

Battery

Price

SUMMARY

Given the phone price, the Oppo A71 is a well-rounded package that delivers a reliable day to day performance. It can be the ideal phone for budget buyers with its speedy, consistent performance across the board.